


Love

by RaccoonMama



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Jealousy, Love Triangles, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-26
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 21:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaccoonMama/pseuds/RaccoonMama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One possibly history, where a bitter rivalry tears apart too many lives…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love

The first letter was disjointed.

Her brow had shot up nearly to the edge of her goggle strap when she read it. It was certainly Peter's rushed handwriting, but he was on and on about the most bizarre thing: an automaton.

She very rarely questioned his genius, of course. Peter was prone to coming up with some of the most unusual inventions, though very rarely had he finished anything as of late. He and Thaddeus had spent so much time bickering with one another over her that his ideas had largely fallen by the wayside.

This, however... this seemed different. There was a certain odd fondness in the words he wrote. He did not call the thing he created “automaton” or “clockwork machine,” he called it Rabbit, though why he did so, she couldn't fathom. What an odd name for an automaton, she considered.

The further she read, the less she could hold back her smiling. Between his gushing at her about how fair and lovely and brilliant she was, he gushed on about the intelligence of his automatonic child. Oh, how smart he was, how quickly he learned! All thanks to a new discovery he had made: blue matter. Yet another brow raising term. She knew of Thaddeus's green matter, but it was far too unstable to be used for anything worthwhile. Had Peter found something much more feasible?

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Delilah pulled the final page of the letter out. It was covered with sketches and drawings of the automaton, mostly just bare bones, but clearly a very clever engineering marvel... and with Peter's style all over him. She almost giggled at the thought that, in her absence, he was practically designing himself a family.

She smiled in earnest at last, folding the letter neatly back into its envelope before pulling a pen and a few sheets of paper herself. Well, a small letter congratulating him on his latest achievement couldn't hurt. She paid no favor to either of the men, and had no intention to. She had her own projects in mind, after all.

* * *

The second big letter came after they had been in correspondence for some weeks more. To be completely frank, she had not even realized how much attention she had been paying to their letters. With Thaddeus somewhere in Africa, and removed from the Cavalcadium as he was, she had very little interaction with him... and besides that, Peter's current exploits were far more intriguing.

This time, he wrote of a “brother” for his first robot. This one he called The Spine, and his primary functions were built entirely into his head and a spinal column made out of a smokestack. This one was smarter and learned faster than the first one, though he still adored Rabbit and how energetic he was, and oh how he wished she could see them and hear them sing together.

They were even writing their own songs.

Her eyes widened at that. The blue matter Peter discovered must have been much more powerful than she thought if it was actually granting these automatons sentience as well as the gift of autonomous movement. There was less of his gushing over her beauty and brilliance in this letter... but so much heart, all the same. The way he spoke of his mechanical children, and how loving and affectionate he seemed toward them...

All at once, she felt her cheeks heating up. This was an entire side of Peter Walter she had never seen. He had always been so focused on impressing her, and perhaps that was part of this, but in this process of creation, he had found love for something else. Love for the children he built. Love for these beautiful creatures she so longed to hear sing.

It wasn't even just wanting to hear them sing, she realized. She was entranced by how much time and effort and genuine love he was putting into them. When she picked up the paper this time, it was with so much more respect than she'd had before.

* * *

The third letter gave her the biggest thrill. He had created a third (and, in Peter's own words, final robot), with a bubbly laugh and a great love for everything around him. He had no name yet, unlike the other two, because names slid off him like water from leaves. There was nothing that felt right to call him, and so, he called him child.

Child.

She couldn't help but smile at that, tapping her fingers lightly against a teacup sitting near her. Peter Walter and his fantastic singing automatons.

His sons.

Peter had created them out of love for her – love that she could feel even this far away. Thaddeus had fallen out of contact with her, jealous at her affection for Peter's whimsical robots, and a growing affection for Peter she hadn't even realized was showing. She put a hand over her heart now as she continued to read, her smile refusing to fade.

Oh, how he went on about them. He gushed over how they played and interacted and how dearly he wanted them to meet her, and how they wanted to meet her as well. They were so smart and so charming and oh how they sang, Delilah, how beautiful they sounded, with voices that would make angels weep.

This time, when she stood, she chose not to write a letter. She had something else far more important to do.

* * *

It was only by a stroke of luck that Thaddeus had been in the states, and to be honest, she should have just written a letter to him. She should have sent a letter indicating she had no further interest in his advances, and Peter had won her heart. She wished him the best and hoped they could remain friends, but they would never be lovers.

She realized now how foolish it had been to tell him in person. He had been furious, ranting about Peter's designs, immediately starting work on her own. She had been uncertain as the evening wore on and he grew eerily calmer, finally offering tea. By the time she got home, she couldn't shake the strange unease.

The following morning she had woken up feeling so terribly faint. Her maids had seen to her immediately, even going so far as to fetch a doctor, but not a one could identify what had been the cause of her terrible illness. She begged for a pen and paper. She desperately needed to send a letter to Peter. Whether her words made any sense drifting from her mouth, she could not say.

No one brought her the paper she desperately pleaded for. They insisted she drink more water, and the day she began to feel marginally better, Thaddeus came to offer his condolences for her malady and offer any assistance he could. The tea he brought to make for her was one he claimed would help to ease her symptoms.

The following morning, her illness had grown worse. She could not speak, her mouth dry and her throat swollen, and any weak cries she attempted to release came out as raspy whispers as faint as the rustle of a snake's scales on brick.

By evening, the only thing the maids could do was to call a carriage and take the distressing news to Walter Manor.

Delilah Moreau was dead.

* * *

Colonel Peter A. Walter I sat quietly in his study after the head maid from the Moreau household had left. All his careful plans, ruined. His beautiful steam powered giraffe, one final gift for his beautiful Delilah, would never be seen by her adoring eyes. His head was in his hands, and he felt cold despite the roaring fire in the hearth before him. He didn't look up when the door opened, and the slow ratcheting of gears and the hissing of steam presented his three automatonic sons, each of them gazing at him in confusion and worry.

Rabbit was the first to settle near him, one spindly hand closing on his creator's wrist, glowing eyes focused on the distraught face that soon turned toward him. “...you look sad.”

“Oh, I am sad, my dear boy,” Peter replied quietly, reaching up to rub the top of Rabbit's smooth copper head. “I am so sad I fear my heart may have turned to ice within my chest, and it has left an empty shadow of a broken, loveless man.” On his other side, The Spine soon settled, gazing up at his “father” as well, though he said nothing. He simply put his hands upon the arm of Peter's chair, photoreceptors shuttering halfway when the man turned from Rabbit to touch his face instead. “My handsome lads. I feel as though I've failed you.”

Weary and saddened, he sank back in his chair as the youngest, smallest of his creations finally came forward to sit before him, curling with his head resting on his creator's knees. “You could never fail us, Pappy,” he murmured, parroting a word Rabbit had begun to use some weeks ago. “You created us.”

Peter tried very hard to smile at all three of them, wishing he could allow himself the luxury of tears. “But I have, my dear child. My beloved Delilah is dead. She shall never hear you sing.”

Between the stunned, empty look on the three metal faces and the dread, empty silence that followed, Peter could no longer maintain the veneer of strength and gentlemanly calm. Leaning forward, supported by the arms of his clockwork sons, he allowed himself to weep.

* * *

The years passed. Thaddeus truly sank into madness after Delilah's death, and Peter was forced to outfit his sons and the clockwork giraffe – now named Delilah – to fight him in Africa. Children were born to both men, but as their individual legacies grew and Peter aged gracefully, Thaddeus was not so lucky.

It was a late winter evening that Peter found himself in what was left of the Becile estate, standing at the bedside of his former friend and longtime rival. Thaddeus was gravely ill, and his symptoms seemed to be similar to those Delilah's maid had described to him the morning after her passing. He bit his tongue to keep from saying what he feared. He wanted to hear the truth from the man's own lips.

“I have been false with you, Peter, and I have done you and Delilah a grave wrong.” Thaddeus drew in a ragged breath, his voice barely above a whisper. “I find it rather fitting, however, that it should end like this... and I wish the air between us to be clear before I die.”

Peter clenched his hands at his sides, drawing in a breath. The air was too stale for his liking, and though he wished he needn't remain here any longer, they had been friends once. It would be cruel of him to depart now. “Then clear it, old friend.”

Thaddeus did not speak for a moment, as though he was gathering his strength. “Delilah's death was not a tragic accident or a mysterious illness, Peter... nor is mine.” He drew in another breath, almost laughing. “Do you think it ironic? That the same thing I used to kill my only love should be the curse that plagues me even now, sending me to an early grave as well?”

Immediately, Peter's shoulders drew back. “To kill... Thaddeus! You didn't! You poisoned Delilah?!”

“With the green matter, yes.” The man coughed hard, turning his head away. “And oh, how I regret it, every second of every day. I was mad with anger and grief. She chose you, Peter! She chose you over me and I was so wrought with fury that I put the damned stuff into the tea I served her that very night, then again when I visited her residence as she was dying. I regret it. I regret having done the deed... having harmed dear, beautiful Delilah so. Please, Peter; I meant no ill. I was caught in a passionate rage. I'd lost and you had won and I could not bear that happening, and now I see what a fool I was!”

Peter did not speak, slowly drawing in a breath through his nose as he stared at his once friend, gaunt from years of infection from the deadly green matter, his eyes sunken and vacant, skin pallid. Gone, gone was the brilliant man who had once held his friendship and a jovial rivalry.

Replaced with some ancient monster who had destroyed both their lives in a fit of jealousy.

“Yes,” he uttered, slowly shaking his head. “Yes, you have done all of us a grave wrong indeed, Thaddeus... and it is a wrong I cannot forgive.”

His breath and voice both caught within his throat, and he turned on his heel, heading for the door, ignoring as Thaddeus weakly shouted after him.

The next day, the headlines told the story of the death of mad old Thaddeus Becile, alone and unloved, and for the second time in a lifetime, Colonel Peter A. Walter sat down with his clockwork sons... and he wept.


End file.
